HanClinto Games is exploring the possibility of developing a version of Alien Frontiers for the iPad. We have a pretty good handle on the number of people who are interested in Alien Frontiers as a board game, but we're less confident about how many of those interested gamers also owns an iPad.

We also wouldn't be opposed to getting the game on Facebook or other online platforms, but we're trying to figure out how to make it worth our while to do so.

In the mean time, if you could help us out by answering out little poll regarding your own interest in an electronic implementation of Alien Frontiers, that would be fantastic.

You may choose as many options as apply, but please help us out by not expressing interest in a platform if you do not own that device.

Please note that I do not have exclusive rights to develop Alien Frontiers for any platforms, and that everything is very preliminary at this point. If you are a developer who has been interested in this project (I think a couple others have posted on here), you should still feel free to contact Clever Mojo.

Thanks so much for everyone's responses! It's very very much appreciated!

Oh please please please take the extra step and develop it for WebOS (palm pre). I heard that porting over games from the iphone to WebOS is pretty simple. There is a pretty active WebOS community out there! www.precentral.net.

Oh please please please take the extra step and develop it for WebOS (palm pre). I heard that porting over games from the iphone to WebOS is pretty simple. There is a pretty active WebOS community out there! www.precentral.net.

Thanks!

Thanks for the suggestion! This is not out of the question, and I'll take it into consideration -- thanks!

(1) An iPad or iPhone app is a very nice way to ameliorate the lag time in printing new copies of the game.

(2) I am one of the five people on the planet who had never played Small World. But I bought the iPad app, and guess what? Now I will probably buy a physical copy of Small World. A well-done app is actually a great marketing tool for the physical game.

(1) An iPad or iPhone app is a very nice way to ameliorate the lag time in printing new copies of the game.

I've worked on three iPhone projects as project head...Jin Li, Taiji, and (coming eventually) Hippos & Crocodiles. I could swim to China and print the second run of Alien Frontiers myself using a Guttenberg press is less time than it takes to develop a "simple" iPhone game. Don't count on seeing this before the AF reprint.

(1) An iPad or iPhone app is a very nice way to ameliorate the lag time in printing new copies of the game.

I've worked on three iPhone projects as project head...Jin Li, Taiji, and (coming eventually) Hippos & Crocodiles. I could swim to China and print the second run of Alien Frontiers myself using a Guttenberg press is less time than it takes to develop a "simple" iPhone game. Don't count on seeing this before the AF reprint.

Out of curiousity, do you not have interest in doing Alien Frontiers in-house, then? Too much going on with a second printing and expansions?

I don't own an iPad, but it's only a matter of time. I do own an iPod Touch.

If you produced a version of AF for the iPad that supports up to 4 players and is as nice as what I've seen of the Small World iPad app, I would almost certainly buy it (for my future iPad).

I'm not sure if I'd want AF on my iPod Touch, although if it had a good AI so I could play it solo, the likelyhood would go way up. (Cramming all the graphics onto that small screen would be tough. I assume that's why Small World is iPad only.) Still, I voted "interested" on your poll for the iPod Touch.

I'm not sure if I'd want AF on my iPod Touch, although if it had a good AI so I could play it solo, the likelyhood would go way up. (Cramming all the graphics onto that small screen would be tough. I assume that's why Small World is iPad only.)

Yeah, so much of what I really like about Alien Frontiers is the artwork and the aesthetics of everything -- I'd hate to lose that by squishing everything down to an iPod sized screen.

All that to say, yes -- we're primarily focused on a play-and-pass version for the iPad initially, potentially with some (simple) AI to help fill the solo times.

Please don't design iPad version to be like Kingsburg where you never see the while board though.

That's our biggest hangup with all of our proposed iPod designs -- we're just not sure how we can get a game this expansive onto a screen that small. So much of Alien Frontiers is about the wide array of options and the ever-changing sea of existing dice on orbitals and alien tech and the battle for territory on the planet surface -- so much of the game is balancing that vast array of options, and it would be hard to present all of those options on such a small screen in a meaningful and aesthetically-pleasing way.

Because we can make things a bit more "open" on the iPad, that's largely why we're focusing on that initially.

Rob, do you have thoughts as to how you think the iPhone Kingsburg could have organized all of its information in a better manner?

Also, thanks for everyone's input regarding the AI. I really really want to make some sort of AI, but especially w.r.t. the alien tech, it's going to be extremely challenging to write, and I'm weighing my desire for an AI against how quickly I want to see this game get developed. While more intensive AI is definitely planned for down-the-road, the initial version probably won't be playing at any sort of tournament level.